Why syria war

Met with an unbudging administration, the anger of the people escalated in a matter of days. Protestors demanded the end to corruption and chanted deep rooted dissatisfactions towards the Assad regime.

In response to the civilian uprisings, government forces resorted to lethal violence and opened fire on unarmed protestors. On 25 April , Daraa was barricaded by the Syrian military. All incoming telephone lines, media, food and medicine supplies were blocked as forces exerted excessive and indiscriminate violence on civilians. Yet, this only added fire to the inferno. Protests demanding the resignation of Bashar al-Assad — peaceful and disruptive alike — spread throughout Syria. It was not long before the country was embroiled in a civil war.

In Syria, as abolitionist demands deteriorated, revolutionary groups formed armed coalitions. Some were defected soldiers while others were militia with vested interests to capture territories in the country. They clashed with government forces to take control of Syrian cities. Some of us may recognise the Free Syrian Army. They have received support from foreigh powers and are often regarded as the figurehead of the opposition.

In actuality, there are numerous other loose factions that have fought over the past 10 years. This has caused much in-fighting, preventing revolutionary forces from mobilising effectively. Since the conflict began, as a Syrian rebellion against the Assad government, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria and have frequently fought one another.

In December , the Syrian army scored its biggest victory against the rebels when it recaptured the strategic city of Aleppo. Since then, the FSA has controlled limited areas in northwestern Syria. In , Syrian opposition fighters evacuated from the last rebel stronghold near Damascus. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media to recruit fighters from around the world.

In April, Russia brokered a deal to evacuate opposition fighters from Eastern Ghouta in the south to Idlib in the north, Idlib being one of the few strongholds controlled by opposition fighters. The province is strategically important for the Syrian government and Russia for its proximity to the Russian-operated Syrian Khmeimim airbase. The Syrian army recaptured the city of Homs in , but fighting continues with rebels in the suburbs between Homs and Hama.

Who is controling what in Syria? How did it escalate so quickly? Protests became even stronger in response, and soon hundreds of thousands of Syrians were taking to the streets and speaking out. Thousands of activists have been killed, and as political instability rose the area became a breeding ground for terrorism, allowing groups such as ISIS to prosper and terrorize the region. Both the government and rebel forces have been accused of severe war crimes- including the utilization of chemical weapons, using civilian suffering as a strategic method, conducting public executions, and more.

The four million people that have attempted to flee from Syria are considered to be one of the largest refugee exoduses ever.

Neighboring countries have become refugee hubs, with some countries struggling to accommodate the refugees and others openly accepting specific quotas. That deepened concern among the international community who saw them as a major threat. Syria's Kurds, who want the right of self-government but have not fought Mr Assad's forces, have added another dimension to the conflict.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights SOHR , a UK-based monitoring group with a network of sources on the ground, had documented the deaths of , people by December , among them , civilians. The toll did not include , people who it said were missing and presumed dead, including 88, civilians believed to have died of torture in government-run prisons.

Another monitoring group, the Violations Documentation Center , which relies on information from activists across the country, has recorded what it considers violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, including attacks on civilians. It had documented , battle-related deaths, including , civilians, as of December Almost 12, children have been killed or wounded, according to the UN children's agency Unicef.

The government's key supporters have been Russia and Iran, while Turkey, Western powers and several Gulf Arab states have backed the opposition to varying degrees over the past decade. Russia - which had military bases in Syria before the war - launched an air campaign in support of Mr Assad in that has been crucial in turning the tide of the war in the government's favour.

The Russian military says its strikes only target "terrorists" but activists say they regularly kill mainstream rebels and civilians. Iran is believed to have deployed hundreds of troops and spent billions of dollars to help Mr Assad. Thousands of Shia Muslim militiamen armed, trained and financed by Iran - mostly from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, but also Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen - have also fought alongside the Syrian army. But they have prioritised non-lethal assistance since jihadists became the dominant force in the armed opposition.

A US-led global coalition has also carried out air strikes and deployed special forces in Syria since to help an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces SDF capture territory once held by IS militants in the north-east.

Turkey is a major supporter of the opposition, but its focus has been on using rebel factions to contain the Kurdish YPG militia that dominates the SDF, accusing it of being an extension of a banned Kurdish rebel group in Turkey.

Turkish troops and allied rebels have seized stretches of territory along Syria's northern border and intervened to stop an all-out assault by government forces on the last opposition stronghold of Idlib. Saudi Arabia , which is keen to counter Iranian influence, armed and financed the rebels at the start of the war, as did the kingdom's Gulf rival, Qatar.